


And Be Still

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Between Seasons/Series, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Season/Series 01, Resurrection, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22048120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Harold was an asshole.
Relationships: Ward Meachum & Danny Rand
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	And Be Still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [illumynare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumynare/gifts).



> I did not manage to write the fic you asked for (I still plan to write it!) so I went to write you what was going to be a quick, angsty Ward ficlet instead, and it ended up full-fic-sized. It's based off [this post](https://laylainalaska.tumblr.com/post/189007147549/hi-i-had-a-terrible-thought-i-felt-compelled-to) and also [this.](https://sholiofic.tumblr.com/post/189399832643/an-interesting-variation-of-the-ward-comes-back)

"Hi, Katie!" Danny dropped a flower on the edge of her desk; he'd picked it growing in a sidewalk crack, where it looked destined to be trampled. "For you. I'm here to pick up Ward for lunch."

She smiled at him and picked up the flower. "Good morning, Mr. Rand. Is he expecting you? Mr. Meachum left instructions earlier that he wasn't to be disturbed."

"He won't mind me," Danny told her. He was reasonably confident it was true; things were much better with Ward these days, nearly a year after he'd gotten back to New York. He and Ward were finding their way back to being family again, to an extent that he could never have guessed when things were going so wrong last year.

Still, he tapped on the door before opening it. "Hey, Ward --"

Ward, at his desk, jerked and slapped his hand down on the computer keyboard, hiding or minimizing something. "Danny," he said, and took a deep breath. "What's, uh. Is there something?"

"Lunch?" Danny said. Ward just looked at him blankly, as if he'd never heard of lunch before. He looked -- not good. Pale and shaken. "Hey, Ward. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Ward said, completely unconvincingly.

Danny shut the door behind him and plunked himself in the chair across from Ward's. "Seriously, what is it?"

"You said lunch, right?" Ward pushed back his chair, stood up -- and wobbled a little, catching himself on the edge of the desk. Danny jumped up to put a hand on his arm, and discovered to his shock that Ward was shaking from head to foot, literally trembling all over.

"Ward," he said, shocked. "Ward, sit down." Ward didn't argue about it, just let Danny take him by the shoulders and steer him back to his chair. He went down readily. Too readily. "Ward, _what?_ You're worrying me. Was there something ...?" He glanced at the computer screen, but it was just a desktop with a scatter of windows. Whatever Ward had been looking at was gone.

"I'm fine," Ward said, ineffectually trying to bat Danny off him.

"Your hands are ice cold. You look like you're about to faint. Seriously." Danny sat on the edge of the desk. "What is it? Is somebody threatening you? Threatening Rand?"

"No. No, I ..." Ward took a deep breath and looked away, gripping the edge of the desk for a moment. "It's just ... Dad. Things Dad did. I think I've found everything and I keep finding new things and ..." He shook his head and stopped.

"What?" Danny asked. He'd think he was over wanting to kill Harold all over again ... and then something like this happened. He thought about putting a hand on Ward's shoulder, but Ward looked like he wouldn't appreciate it. Instead he worked on keeping his voice low and calm. "What'd he do?"

"Nothing," Ward said, "I mean, nothing he didn't already ..." He shook his head again.

"Whatever he did isn't your fault," Danny said, taking a wild stab in the dark, but Ward just gave a sharp laugh and then was quiet again, staring at the desk. "Look, seriously, Ward, you're freaking me out. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm ... well -- I -- You know what? Screw it." Ward took a deep breath and reached for the computer mouse with a hand that trembled slightly. "What the hell. What have I got to lose?" He paused, hand resting on the mouse, jittering slightly, while Danny watched him with a crawling feeling of unease in his stomach. "Okay, first of all, something you gotta know ... did you know there were cameras in the penthouse?"

"No," Danny said simply. The uneasy feeling grew into full-blown queasiness.

"He had cameras everywhere," Ward said, carefully not looking at Danny. "In my office. The penthouse. A bunch of other places. And he kept most of the footage, years and years of it -- I destroyed a bunch of it, but I felt like I ought to spot-check ... I've ... been going through it, over the last year."

" _Ward,"_ Danny said. He couldn't really think what else to say.

Ward laughed again, a bright, worrying laugh. "Most of it's boring as hell. You want to watch six hours of Dad lying in that stupid sunlamp thing he had? Yeah, me neither. A lot of it's like that, or just walking around the penthouse, or _me_ walking around the penthouse ... You know. Stuff. But then I'll sometimes find ... other stuff." He hesitated, his hand jerking on the mouse, a nervous twitch.

Danny reached out and lightly put his hand over Ward, curling his fingers over Ward's ice-cold ones. "Ward," he said gently. "You don't have to show me this. Whatever it is. We can talk about it, or -- not talk about it, if that's what you want to do. But if you don't want me to see it --"

"No," Ward said sharply. He pushed Danny's hand away. "I think ... I _do_ want you to see it. I need you to see it. Because, honestly? If you don't, I think it might drive me insane."

He opened a folder filled with numbered video files, and double-clicked on one.

The video window opened up in a corner of the screen. It was small, not very high-quality, but Danny recognized Harold and Ward before Ward enlarged it. The camera angle was looking down at the couch and desk in the penthouse. Ward was sitting on the couch, Harold pacing and talking. There was no sound.

"Timestamp says this was about six years ago," Ward said quietly. "I don't know. I don't remember." He dragged the cursor forward on the video timeline. Time skipped, Harold jerked around, Ward got up, and now some kind of argument was happening. Harold swung around suddenly, and struck Ward across the face. Ward staggered backwards, and here and now, in the Rand office, Ward flinched.

"Ward," Danny said helplessly. He didn't want to watch this. Didn't feel like he should be watching this. On the screen, Harold struck him again -- punched him in the stomach, dragged him up by the hair. Danny thought he might be sick, and he reached blindly for the mouse. "Ward, I shouldn't be watching this, this isn't right."

"No," Ward said impatiently, batting him away. "This isn't what I wanted you to -- this is ... pretty typical, honestly. Just keep watching."

Okay, there was a whole _world_ of horror in that casual dismissal, especially given the increasing violence of what was happening onscreen. Danny made himself watch, and felt, unbidden, the phantom sting of canes across his back, the pain of fists and feet driving him to the sand of the training ring. He'd been on the receiving end of violence like this, but it hadn't been hot, delivered in the heat of fury. It had been cool, calculated, for his own good ...

Ward-on-the-screen wasn't even trying to fight back; he was just trying to protect himself, backing off, trying futilely to cover his head and his stomach with his arms. The retreat only seemed to infuriate Harold more. He snatched up a paperweight from the desk and came around swinging. Danny found himself lurching forward off the desk, toward the screen, as if he could stop it -- but he couldn't, of course; the events on the screen had already played out years ago. And it went on, marching forward: Harold smashed the paperweight into the side of Ward's head, and Ward went down. The side of his head rebounded off the desk, his head cocked at a horrible angle, and he slithered limply to the floor, half visible past the couch in the camera angle.

Sudden dizziness washed over Danny, a dazed sense of unreality. He _couldn't_ have seen what he'd just seen. But it was still going on, unfolding onscreen as Harold stood immobile for a long moment, staring down at Ward. 

"Did he ..." Danny began. His voice shook. He tasted bile on the back of his tongue.

"He killed me," Ward said. He sounded oddly calm. "Keep watching. Actually ..." He took a deep breath. "Not much happens for a little while. Let me skip ahead."

Danny couldn't take his eyes off the screen. He was dimly aware that his hands were shaking now, too. He felt like he'd just watched Ward die, right in front of him. _(Cold and snow and mountains and an airplane falling out of the sky --)_

Except Ward was here. Right here. Danny shifted his position a little so that he could lean against Ward, their arms touching. Ward didn't try to stop him. He was skipping through the video now, making Harold jump around aimlessly: now he was at the desk, now he'd vanished completely, now he was back with some kind of large blanket, not to cover Ward with, but, as it turned out, to wrap him up in, like a roll of carpet. And all the while, Ward was there on the floor, head turned at an angle that made it impossible for Danny to deny what he was looking at. He'd seen dead people. He knew what they looked like.

"How many times have you watched this?" 

"A few," Ward said.

"That doesn't sound good for you," Danny said. Ward gave a small, sharp-edged laugh, and skipped forward some more.

Now Harold was dragging Ward's ... body? That didn't seem right, but it _did_ describe what appeared to be happening on the screen. Harold had dragged blanket-wrapped Ward a little ways out from the couch, handling the ... body ... in a casual, matter-of-fact way that made Danny want to reach through the screen and punch his face to shards of bone and blood --

"Danny," Ward murmured. "Your, uh. Fist."

Danny jerked back to himself and looked down at the glow under the bones and veins in his right hand. "Oh. Uh. Yeah." He forced himself to open his fist, which was clenched so tightly that his joints hurt and his nails had left painful creases in his palm. The light faded. He shook out his aching hand. Ward was giving him a look of odd, distracted ... something; it was hard to read his expression. Danny looked away, back at the screen, where Harold was now back at the desk, on the phone. "How much more more of this is there?"

"I just wanted to show you this next bit." Ward skipped ahead again.

Now there were people in the room. Black-clad people, picking up the limp, pathetic bundle. And that was definitely Gao, talking to Harold. Danny leaned forward again -- he just wanted to _stop them_ , even knowing it was impossible -- it had already happened, but it was happening again right in front of him and _they couldn't,_ they weren't allowed --

"Danny," Ward murmured. He sounded almost amused, more like his usual sardonic self, and there was even a trace of a smile on the corner of his mouth. "If you Iron Fist my computer, I'm gonna have to expense it and I don't think we have a form for that."

Danny looked down and found that his hand was clenched into a glowing fist again. Shivering, he managed to unfold it, peeling his fingers painfully apart; the glow died. "That's the Hand."

"Yeah," Ward said. On screen, the Hand operatives were carrying his ... his _body_ away. "Yeah. It sure is."

"Ward, they -- you --" Danny couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He closed his eyes, and after a moment, opened them again. "He --"

"So as you see, we have a problem," Ward said.

His voice was flat and almost emotionless. Danny turned to look at him, wrenching his gaze (finally, blessedly) off the computer screen, where the Hand still moved about with their horrible, tragic burden, where Harold and Gao stood deep in silent conversation. In the real world, Ward's mouth was twisted into a peculiar half-smile.

"We sure _do_ ," Danny said. His voice shook. He kept his hands flat only by pressing them on Ward's desk. "Your dad's a psycho and I wish we could go back and kill him a thousand more times, but we got rid of him, we ... _did_. You did. We watched him burn. There's nothing we can do now about any of the things that he did, but --"

"I'm not me," Ward said.

That, at least, Danny had an answer to. "That's ridiculous."

"You just watched what I watched. You saw --"

"I know," Danny said quickly. "That doesn't mean you're not _you,_ Ward."

"Really? Because you know what I found out when I went digging up information on the Hand, and what they did to Dad? I found out that when the Hand ... brings people back ..." He sucked in a shuddering breath. "-- they come back _wrong._ I mean, we both saw that with Dad."

"He was a monster before," Danny said. "It didn't turn him into one. He planned to kill my parents before he ever met the Hand."

"Yeah, but trust me, he wasn't like _that_ before. Every time he came back, he came back with a little more of him ... missing."

Danny glanced at the screen. The video was still playing. He reached for the mouse and clicked to stop it; Ward didn't try to stop him. "What do you remember of ... that? You said it's a blank?"

"A total blank," Ward said, his voice scratchy. "I don't remember anything at all. I have a vague sort of memory, I think I was in a car crash around that time and in the hospital for awhile -- I mean, I _thought_ that's what happened. There's a lot of the last ten years I don't remember all that well."

"Trauma does that," Danny said. Colleen had done a lot of looking into trauma recovery and cult deprogramming when they'd first gotten back to New York; she had a bunch of books on it.

"Booze and pills do too," Ward said wryly. "Also, being brained by your asshole dad with a paperweight and brought back as some kind of zombie. You know, I keep just ... wanting to test it, I mean, in theory I should be able to walk right off the roof and I'll come back a few days later --"

Horrified, Danny caught both his hands. "Please don't."

"I'm not going to," Ward said, but he still wasn't meeting Danny's eyes. "Look, I just keep ... wondering, asking myself what's not there, if I'd even _know_ \-- but I wouldn't know, that's the point, right? Dad probably didn't think he was a monster, either."

"You're not -- _Ward_ \--" Danny huffed out something between a sigh and a laugh, because of course Ward would find out something like this and take it to the worst possible conclusion; that was so _Ward._

Ward was still talking, going on in a dry monotone made horrible by what he was actually saying. "Maybe I wouldn't have done any of the things I did to you, if not for this. If I'd really been me. I don't even remember why I did any of that, now. It all felt right at the time."

"Nah, you were a jerk when we were kids too." Danny nudged him, going for a smile, and noticed that Ward was shivering again. "Ward, come on, seriously."

Ward looked up at him, raw desperation in his eyes. "How is this not freaking you out?"

" _You're_ freaking me out." Danny slid off the desk and crouched down, so Ward had to look down at him; he gripped both Ward's upper arms firmly, like he was grounding Ward or maybe himself. "Here's the thing, Ward. We're neither of us who we used to be. And yeah, this is -- a _lot,_ and maybe we both need some time to process it, but you're forgetting something, you know?"

"What?" Ward asked, looking down at him as if hypnotized.

"Whatever Harold did to you, you're the only _you_ I've ever really known. I mean, I sort of knew you before, but we were just kids. Everything that's happened since I got back to New York has been with you, the 'now' you, and I really _like_ the 'now' you, Ward. The 'now' you is my brother and I'm awfully fond of him and don't like to find him torturing himself with Harold's old videos, and now I'm talking about you in the third person, so," Danny went on, giving him a little shake, "getting back to the whole reason why I'm here, I came to get you for lunch, and I think we should go to lunch and then you should delete that file and all the other files."

"Yeah, but -- I -- _Danny_ \-- I can't just do that, I have to --"

"What, watch them because it hurts?" Danny asked, and he watched a wave effect of different emotions cross Ward's face, surprise and anger and bafflement and a certain amount of _oh._ Ward wasn't usually that easy to read. "Or do you want to keep giving Harold that, now and forever?"

"It's not that easy," Ward muttered. But he turned suddenly, wrenching free of Danny. He selected everything in the folder, hesitated for a moment, and then trashed it.

"Feel better?"

"No," Ward said. "I don't know. I'm not really hungry right now, to be honest."

"Me neither," Danny admitted. Any urge he'd had to eat had evaporated at the sight of that video. "Why don't we walk over to the park and -- I dunno, we can grab something if we do get hungry, or just kind of hang out."

"Are you serious? You _are_ serious." Ward heaved a deep sigh. "You know I've got work to do."

"Which you are totally doing, and have been doing."

Danny thought he might've pushed it a little too far, but Ward sighed again, as if he was being dragged into this, DRAGGED, against his will, and got up.

Danny gave him a sideways hug. Ward stiffened slightly, then relaxed a little.

"So you're basically immortal now, right?"

"Doesn't mean invulnerable," Ward muttered. "Let me tell you, things still _hurt."_

"Still. It's like you have superpowers. That's so cool."

"You _literally_ have superpowers."

"You're gonna be okay, Ward. You're still you, I swear."

Ward sighed again. "Can we not talk about this? Can we just -- go to the park, or wherever, and talk about refinishing your vintage furniture or whatever you and Colleen are doing with the dojo now, and just ... not talk about it. For a little while."

"Yeah," Danny said gently. "Yeah, we can do that." And opened the door for him.


End file.
